LATIMER, John

The Latimers of Dorset were descended from a younger son of William, Lord Latimer (d.1304), of Corby, Northamptonshire. Through the marriage of our MP’s grandfather, Sir Robert Latimer† (d.1361) to the daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Hull, they acquired manors in Child Okeford and East Pulham in the north of Dorset, as well as ‘Estoket’ in Somerset,4 Hutchins, iii. 705; iv. 77-78; CIPM, xv. 663. to add to their own estates at Swanage and Godlington on the Isle of Purbeck and the manors of Dewlish and Duntish.5 CIPM, xv. 519-21, 663. John’s father, another Sir Robert, served as a j.p. in their home county from 1417 to 1423, as well as on other royal commissions, and before 1411 took as his second wife Maud, widow of Sir John Hill†, j.KB, who lived at Kytton Barton in Devon.6 CPR, 1408-13, p. 375. Maud’s marriage to Sir Robert Latimer is not mentioned in the cartulary compiled by her stepson Robert Hill† of Spaxton: Hylle Cart. (Som. Rec. Soc. lxviii), p. xviii, nos. 319-21. In 1412 his lands in Devon, consisting mainly of his wife’s dower, were said to be worth £22 p.a., those in Dorset £103 p.a., and in Somerset £40 p.a. (the last including the profits of his wife’s manor of Houndstone and lands in Yeovil). Of this total of £165 p.a., at least £103 came from property which formed John’s inheritance.7 Feudal Aids, vi. 417, 421, 504. In September 1412, as the first-born son and heir of Sir Robert, John confirmed to his stepmother Maud her interest for life in the family manor of Dewlish, settled on her in jointure, and in the manor and a moiety of the advowson of Child Okeford, which had been entailed on her and Sir Robert and their issue.8 CCR, 1409-13, pp. 397-8; Hutchins, iv. 77-78. The couple were both still alive in 1431,9 Feudal Aids, ii. 126, 128. but Sir Robert died shortly before May 1435.10 CFR, xvi. 216 – a writ de diem clausit extremum. No post mortem has survived.

Yet even before his father died, John had taken possession of some of the family property, and in 1431, described as ‘of Duntish’ he was said to be holding the manor of Child Okeford. He was patron of the rectory there two years later.11 Feudal Aids, ii. 70, 125; Hutchins, iv. 83-84. Although appointed in 1429 to the comparatively lowly office of tax collector, after he came into his full inheritance he was a man of some wealth and standing, subject to distraint for knighthood and in 1434 required to take the generally-administered oath not to maintain those who broke the peace.12 CPR, 1429-36, p. 382. Latimer attested three parliamentary elections of knights of the shire for his home county (on occasion along with his kinsman Nicholas Latimer of Fittleford), before himself being elected to the Parliament assembled at Westminster on 21 Jan. 1437. While the Parliament was in progress, during the first three months of the year, he was also preoccupied with his private concerns. He and Thomas Cheddar esquire, the patrons of the two parts of the rectory of Child Okeford, addressed a petition to Bishop Robert Neville of Salisbury (a member of the Council of the minority) showing that the tithes of the parish yielded an insufficient amount to sustain two rectors in permanent residence, and suggesting that the two should serve in alternate years. The bishop dealt with the matter on 11 Mar., a fortnight before the dissolution.13 Hutchins iv. 83-84, citing Salisbury, Reg. Neville, inter acta, ff. 2, 3. Among Latimer’s fellows in the Commons, sitting as a shire knight for Somerset, was the outstanding lawyer John Hody*, who was to be promoted chief justice of the King’s bench just three years later. The two men decided to link their families by marriage, and at an unknown date before Hody drew up his will on 17 Dec. 1441 he made an agreement with Latimer for his young daughter Joan to marry Latimer’s son and heir, Nicholas.14 Reg. Chichele, ii. 605-6.

All the knights of the shire in the Parliament of 1437 were commissioned to distribute tax allowances in their respective counties, but, inexplicably, following this appointment Latimer was not required to perform any further public service. Nor was he elected to Parliament again, although he did attest the Dorset elections once more, in 1447. Earlier on in the decade he had been named a feoffee of property in Salisbury and Old Sarum, apparently in the interest of John Stourton II*, afterwards Lord Stourton, but there is no sign that he was ever closely associated with this influential member of the Wiltshire gentry.15 C140/63/55; CCR, 1461-8, p. 126. Curiously, it was his son Nicholas who was returned for Dorset to the Parliament of 1453, rather than John, the head of the family. One explanation for his withdrawal from public life throughout the 1450s may be that he was suffering from ill health. John took out a royal pardon on 4 Jan. 1459,16 C67/42, m. 36. and died seven days later.17 CFR, xix. 213; C139/175/7.